


The Black Eye, The Moon

by extentia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Derek Hale Character Study, Hurt, POV Second Person, paige aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 12:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7051804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extentia/pseuds/extentia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek POV. Paige and Kate aftermath in poetic language with surreal quality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Black Eye, The Moon

         You don’t ache the way you used to. There are hymnal chords playing from somewhere to the left. You don’t have to run anymore. Nobody’s following you. Nobody wants to know you. Yeah, you’re pretty sure this time; you are safe.

 

          You learn it’s easier to stay a draft. You’re unfinished. You’re working to your goals, and you’re probably close. Every time, when you decide good enough isn’t good enough, the step backwards is a net. There’s no way to reach completion. No way, no amount of muscles, no endurance enough. You’re the ladder of ivy crawling towards the sun it can never reach. Fulfillment is an illusion, elusive. You can see it now.

 

          You don’t mean to throw yourself at Kate’s feet so quickly, but everything about her sucks you in. You can forget about the deeper parts of yourself. Everything is so simple. What would Kate like? What does Kate want? If you get her this, will she like it? Will she accept you for who you are? How do you tell her? Will she still want you if she knows you’re not like her?

 

          Kate brushes all of your lingering doubts away with her slick words; and her body is the antidote to everything poisoning you, all day, every day. You can breathe. You can finally breathe in. So, you used your newly found breath to tell Kate everything she wonders about.

 

         And, yeah, the sex is good, but the cavern inside of you that Kate filled entirely is starting to hollow itself out again. You keep sharing more, trying to fill it – trying to break into her head, to put the things you find there into the missing parts you keep discovering in yourself.

 

         It’s poetic, you think for a while, that you and your lover are two parts of the same soul. It’s easy to talk to her about everything that isn’t Paige. You can’t talk about her. You can’t even say her name aloud for a long time.

 

          You were wrong.

 

         There is acid rain pouring down everywhere. The smoke doesn’t choke but you wish you could shove it down your throat, and like a circus trick, pull the ghosts of your family out of your body and back into life.

 

          She leaves Beacon Hills and takes everything you had with her. Even if you tear her to shreds you can’t get it back.

 

          You puke, rend your claws into yourself, and hold a lighter under your skin so you can know what it feels like. Because it’s your fault. You notice so many passing conversations, whispers, preachers, all talking about atonement.  It’s probably just because you’re listening too hard. You shut it out. You shut everything out.

 

         Then there is just the void. An unending blackness, that is neither black, nor actually there. It is just an absence. It is _the_ absence. You feel sick. But, how do you purge memories? How do you dispel the revulsion that licks up your boots into all of those sickened parts of you, when any stranger gives you a smile on the street?

 

         Eventually the stitches become visible. Even if you choose not to touch them, you can find them if you want to. But there’s no reason to pull yourself together. Laura understands. Peter doesn’t know. Everybody else you’ve ever cared about is dead.

 

         Older men buy you coffee when you’re folded over yourself on city benches. When you spend hours over-exercising in Central Park, you find the pitying eyes of fellow joggers. They offer you water sometimes, trail mix bars, sometimes a shoulder. You usually refuse.

 

         Until one day you slip. You cry into somebody’s shoulder, because they smiled like your mother. She wraps one of her arms over your shoulder, and all you can see through the blur of your tears is the dark hair and the tanned skin and you can pretend.

 

         When you come back to yourself, you’re mortified. You run away, angry with yourself and end up looking into the life insurance money you’ve been refusing to acknowledge. You buy a private gym membership and you keep working because you’re strong. You’re going to stay strong and nothing like Paige or like Kate is ever going to happen again.

 

         Never again will the package be torn to reap what’s inside. Never again. No, you’re going to stay smarter and stronger. You’re willing to do everything to protect the pack you have left. There’ll always be room for improvement, so you’ll never be bored.

 

         But you’re a poison, and you know it. You keep trying to expel all the emptiness and empty all the guilt. It just leaves you numb. You’re so angry, all the time. You’re mad at yourself, mostly, but at Kate, at Laura, and at every person who looks at you. You know it’s your fault. Everything since Paige was your fault, and you keep reminding yourself you can never be free of that knowledge.

 

         Laura tries to help, but everything she says falls flat because she doesn’t know. You don’t even know how to explain. How can you tell her that Kate took everything inside of you and made it in her image, and no matter how much you try to adjust the chains around your neck and your ankles they are still shackles? Because you know, Laura will look at you and tell you nothing was your fault. But it is your fault, goddamn it, so you can’t say anything.

 

         It eats you from the inside, while you sculpt the package. You don’t think about what you lost – just that you caused it to leave. It’s a rotten bedtime story, rotating every night through your head, but you like the reminder. If you remember, you can’t fuck up again.

 

         Laura goes missing. You hesitate for a few days. Can you really go back to Beacon Hills to find her? Can you step foot into the town where you were reared into this flat, blank, disk?

 

         Laura’s dead.

 

         And this time it isn’t your fault, because you told her not to go back. The knowledge doesn’t help you rest easy, but it gives you a little more breathing room. You’ve got the space to unravel a murder you’re not the center of.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my beta Eenna! huge shout out to her for this prompt, as well.


End file.
